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Aviation History
1956
1956 - 0930.PDF
76 ALL QUARTERS... never been pretended that they were economical. He said that thebig new jets had been ordered by many operators who did not really want them, and asked, did anyone realize what they meantin terms of taxpayers' money, for longer runways, strengthened runways, and in terms of noise, right of way on approach andright to refuse stacking. Lord Brabazon said that he believed that all aircraft which touched down at over 100 m.p.h. were in danger. The economics of the new jets were very questionable exceptat abnormally high load factors, he continued. The world screamed today about the jets to come, but made all too little of the turbo-props which we had today. Flying was not just New York to London and San Francisco; there were many other routes. Heasked are we going to be stampeded into jets of American type? Or should we give proper attention to fuel economy, silence,reverse thrust, deflected thrust, lower landing speeds and shorter landings, and to a concentrated attack on laminar flow? The concentration on speed had been overdone. Passengerswere more interested in regularity, safety and comfort, and Lord Brabazon thought that there was an enormous future in an AirPassengers' Protection League! Lord Brabazon then introduced Mr. Watkinson, who was to reply, saying that it seemed that atpresent we were just drifting. Would the Minister tell us some- thing of what we were intending to do? In his reply, Mr. Watkinson said that we must try to holda leading place in the air as we had done at sea. We have remarked in past years of speeches by Major R. H.Thornton that it is impossible to transpose them into the printed word. Once again. Major Thornton delighted and entertainedeveryone in proposing the Guests. The response was made by Mr. George Edwards, who startedby paying a tribute to Lord Brabazon for his services to the A.R.B. and British aviation. He also spoke warmly of the work of FLIGHT, 13 July 1956 the chief technical officer and chief test pilot. He added that thepeople concerned in his company considered Taffy Davis to be "one of the best performers in an aeroplane." Mr. Edwards spokeof the independence of the A.R.B. and added, somewhat cryptic- ally, that more independence elsewhere might produce the samehappy results. Of the big American jet airliners, he said that competitive, noisy or not, they had sterilized a great whack ofmoney in America, and we should never underestimate American competition. He referred to his recent visit to Russia as a memberof a Government mission, and said that, in addition to America, we should soon have Russia in competition with us. Like America,but unlike ourselves, they had a large home market and adequate facilities. They would be flying three new civil prototypes in theyear to come. He hoped for our sake that they had licensing authorities to hold them back a bit! Certainly, it would not bemany years before we were in competition with the Russians and they were, in his opinion, pretty competent people. Mr. Edwards went on to refer to American competition onlong-range routes and the 200 aircraft "which had been bought mainly with the money that the customers had not got." B.O.A.C.wanted 20 or 30 aircraft at the most, and on this basis we could not afford to compete. The only chance for British manufacturersnow was to do something different which would take ten to twelve years—a supersonic airliner, in fact.America and Russia had a way of not starting something until they knew they wanted it, he added. They believed in the sus-tained policy. One aircraft that Mr. Edwards could think of had cost three-quarters of a million precious design man-hours, whichhad gone down the drain without any reward. This we could not afford. After referring to the Viscount, Mr. Edwards said that hethought it was right to buy British aircraft, not because they were British, but because they were the right aircraft, and he herementioned the excellent job that had been done by engine manu- facturers, Rolls-Royce in particular. SCORPION and SCREAMER O OCKET motors developed by the British aircraft industry•"• invariably seem to have a name beginning with the letter S, and in the case of the two units described here the names are asdramatic as the units themselves. Both are liquid-propellant, single-chamber motors intended for permanent installation inmanned aircraft. The Scorpion is a Napier unit (Ministry of Supply experi-mental rating NSc.l) designed at the company's Flight Develop- ment Establishment at Luton, Beds. No details of the Scorpionmay at present be publishedi but 3 from the accompanyingphotograph of its installation in an English Electric Canberra, one can make certain obvious deductions regarding its general char-acter. The motor is installed in the rear part of the bomb bay, together with its associated tankage and control systems. Thecomplete installation was manufactured and installed by Napier at Luton, and the Scorpion was first fired in the air on May 20.Development has since been most satisfactory. The other motor depicted on this page is the ArmstrongSiddeley Screamer. The existence of this unit has long been known, but only now is it possible to describe its basic charac-teristics; a full description will follow in an early issue. Rocket development by Armstrong Siddeley Motors is concentrated at anad hoc establishment at Ansty, near Coventry. Using as a basis Flight development of the Napier Scorpion liquid-propellant rocket motor is being undertaken with a unit mounted in this English Electric Canberra. The horizontal pipe under the extreme tail is an overboard- dump-pipe for propellants. Shock-diamonds in the jet can be seen. the experience gained during the bench- and flight-trials of theSnarler (the first British liquid-propellant motor to fly), the design of the Screamer was started several years ago and the prototypeScreamer was first fired at Ansty in March 1954. Although other mixtures are obviously suitable, the Screamerwas designed to run on liquid oxygen and kerosine, and the initial special-category test rating was 4,000 lb thrust on the bench.During the development of the Screamer the thrust was pro- gressively raised to 8,000 1b and present examples can develop asmuch as 9,500 Ib-thrust at 40,000ft altitude (very much more than the thrust of the world's most powerful turbojet at this altitude). The accompanying photograph shows the very neat installationwhich Armstrong Siddeley have evolved. In their previous unit, the Snarler, an external mechanical drive had to be provided forthe propellant pump, but in the Screamer the complete installa- tion is self-contained and could, if necessary, be used as the solepowerplant of a high-speed aircraft. The pump valve and control group occupies the left hand of the photograph and the regenera-tively-cooled chamber is visible at the extreme right. The circular firewall indicates that this particular motor was designed to fit ina small nacelle. A single lever is employed for starting, control of thrust and shut-down. This version of the 8,000 Ib-thrust Armstrong Siddeley Screamer weighs 470 Ib, and measures 78in in length by 28in diameter.
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